


Meet the Beetle

by wordbending



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Animal Death, Bugs & Insects, Fluff, Multi, Other, Pets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-04-11
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:27:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23602324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordbending/pseuds/wordbending
Summary: Asriel is definitely, absolutely, not even slightly, not at all, afraid of bugs.So of course he doesn't mind catching one. Or taking care of one. Or letting one crawl around on his paw and talking to it in the late afternoon.Of course not.
Relationships: Chara/Asriel Dreemurr/Frisk, Chara/Frisk (Undertale)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 37





	Meet the Beetle

“We should go catch real bugs,” Frisk announced, out of the blue, out of _nowhere_.

 _“Huh?”_ said Asriel, putting down their Funtendo Switch EX Pro V and staring, fittingly rather bug-eyed, at them.

“Mmmphrmph,” mumbled Chara, laying across both their laps under a blanket, like an overgrown cat.

“You heard me,” Frisk continued. “We should catch real bugs. You’ve been catching tarantulas for over two hours. It’s boring.”

“It’s not _boring,”_ Asriel huffed. “It’s the most efficient way to earn money. How am I supposed to pay off my loan if I don’t do this, selling turnips? _That’s_ boring.”

“Mmmmmmmph,” groaned Chara.

“Besides,” Asriel continued, before looking back down at his character. His face scrunched into a frown. “I… uh, nevermind.”

“He’s afraid of bugs,” said Chara, raising their head from Asriel’s lap for a moment before yawning and lowering it again.

“Shut up! I am not!”

“If you’re not afraid, then we should go catch some!” said Frisk, with a smile that worked excellently, in Asriel’s opinion, at hiding just how _evil_ they could be. “It’ll be fun!”

“No,” said Asriel flatly. “Get Chara to do it. I am never, ever going to go catch bugs.”

* * *

Asriel stared at his bug-catching net, his explorer’s vest, and his pith hat, and his two best friends, wearing the same things.

“Of course,” he sighed.

“Oh, would you lighten up,” said Chara with a smile that failed to reveal how much fun they were having, although the amount Asriel imagined was ‘probably a lot.’ “You’ve been so busy with that silly game that you barely leave the house. This will be good for you.”

“And it’ll be fun!” added Frisk with a smile of their own.

“I have serious doubts.”

Frisk blew a raspberry at him and skipped off into the forest (well, the local walking trail) in search of bugs. Chara followed behind slowly, whistling a jaunty tune. Asriel, filled with an agonizing sense of both regret and dread, followed behind them both.

It didn’t take them long to find bugs, in a broad sense. Frisk picked up rocks and found pillbugs, but that didn’t seem to be what they were looking for, so they put them back. Chara managed to find earthworms, but Frisk shook their head, so Chara put those back. Asriel somehow managed to get his head caught in a spider’s web and decided that, despite their value in video game currency, that he actually hated arachnids.

“What… ow… are you… ow… looking for… anyway?” Asriel finally asked as they set on a park bench and Chara and Frisk pulled strings of spider web out of his fur.

“I dunno,” said Frisk with a shrug. “A cicada.”

“Those don’t come out until summer,” Chara said.

“Oh.” Frisk paused. “Then… a butterfly? Or a ladybug. Or maybe a snail.”

“You could just… ow... buy a snail from Napstablook,” Asriel said with a roll of his eyes. “Or ask Toriel for… ow... one.”

“That’s no fun” and “how boring _are_ you” said Frisk and Chara, respectively, at the exact same time. Asriel turned left and right and glared at them both, but tried to glare at Chara even harder.

At that moment, past the park bench they were sitting on, a butterfly with blue wings flew past. Asriel, Chara, and Frisk all froze in place, staring at it, none of them daring to say a word. Slowly, Chara reached for their net.

The butterfly seemed like it was going to fly away, but something then seemed to grab its interest and it began to fly instead towards the three of them. Asriel and Frisk both stared in awe as it got closer and closer, wondering if they were lucky enough that it’d actually land right where they could reach it. Chara’s fingers clasped around their net.

At last, the butterfly landed… on Asriel’s snout, right at the tip of his nose. Asriel didn’t make a sound, not even a bleat, despite how incredibly uncomfortable he was. Bugs had been the bane of his existence for longer than any one being should be said to be able to exist, and having his own body again didn’t make him stop feeling like they were going to eat him alive.

This one, though… it was kind of beautiful. It had bright blue wings, with the edges of them outlined in black. With it this close, he could see its antennae, the structures making up its wings, even its small, beady head, in incredible detail. He could…

Everything abruptly went dark, and something hard and wooden hit him on the skull. He coughed and sputtered, trying to figure out what had happened while the butterfly flapped its wings against his face like an angered bird... only for the light to return just as quickly as it had gone.

“Did I get it?” said Chara’s voice, while Asriel struggled to breathe again.

“ _No,”_ said Asriel with as much venom as he could put into a single word.

“Aww,” said Frisk, watching as the confused and disoriented butterfly flew off in a directionless haze. Chara started to give chase to it, but had just as much luck catching it as they did when it was standing still. “Well, we’ll get it next time.”

“There won’t be a next time!” whined Asriel. “I am not butterfly bait!”

* * *

Asriel sighed as he squatted next to a small yellow-gold flower, directly across from Frisk. Frisk was squatted down in front of a ladybug, hopefully holding their net behind them, a wide smile on their face.

It was really cute, Asriel had to admit. He had the odd urge to pet them on the top of their head, which he decidedly ignored.

“Be a little more help, Ree,” is what Asriel would have imagined Chara would have been saying if they hadn’t been stubbornly chasing that same butterfly for the last twenty minutes.

“Don’t hesitate,” he suggested, listening to his brain-Chara’s advice. “Swing it as hard as you can.”

Frisk nodded, narrowed their eyes, and wiggled their way into what Asriel guessed was supposed to be a more proper bug-catching stance. Scrunching their face in concentration, a tiny bit of their tongue stuck out from between their lips.

At last, they swung… and… the net fell perfectly around the ladybug, capturing it!

“Whoa!” Asriel exclaimed. “Frisk, you did it! Uh, now, um... ” He tried to remember what he was supposed to do here. “Turn the net around really quickly and… um…” Oh, right, the cage. He reached into the backpack sitting next to him and took out the mesh bug cage. “Stick it in here!”

Frisk nodded rapidly and placed the bug catching net over the opening of the bug cage. They both peered closely into the cage, waiting for the ladybug to fly in.

Nothing happened, at first, and Asriel could see the worry in Frisk’s eyes that they had accidentally squashed it instead of capturing it. He was about to open his mouth to try and reassure them when Frisk nearly gave him a heart attack by letting out an uncharacteristic, excited, happy squeal and pointing at the cage.

Sure enough, there was the ladybug, fluttering around inside the cage. Quickly, Asriel shut the cage lid, and Frisk outright grinned.

Asriel couldn’t help it, despite the queasiness he felt in his gut and the spiderwebs still in his fur and everything about this long, miserable afternoon - he grinned right back.

* * *

“A ladybug?” said Chara once they’d managed to reunite with them. They were crouched low to the ground, staring at the fluttering creature with a raised eyebrow, but after a moment, they turned their gaze up to Asriel and Frisk and smiled. “You know, those aren’t always ladies, and they aren’t even actually bugs. They’re beetles. Mischaracterized from birth - I can relate to that.”

“You sound like Rambles,” said Asriel.

“The owl? _I’m_ not the one afraid of bugs.”

Asriel glared. “I told you, I’m _not_ afraid of them.”

“Sure, sure,” Chara said with a shrug of their shoulders.

“Well, I bet _you’re_ scared of something stupid too, so whatever,” Asriel shot back, huffing. Frisk looked back and forth between them both, concerned.

“All these years and you don’t know me well enough to say?” Chara replied, raising their hand to their chest in mock offended surprise. “I’ll have you know, as a matter of fact, I’m afraid of only three things -” they counted them out on their fingers - “being alone, being forgotten, and being rejected.”

Asriel stared at Chara, whose poker face was, as always, without parallel. Frisk stared as well.

“That was a joke,” Chara clarified. “I’m only afraid of peanut butter getting stuck to the roof of my mouth.”

“Wait, really?” asked Asriel.

“Is that why you didn’t like those peanut butter chocolates I got you?” Frisk asked.

“God, don’t remind me of those,” Chara said, making a face that could only be described as ‘bleh.’ “Disgusting, vile things. You should have known better.”

“I like them,” said Frisk quietly.

“So I was right! You _do_ have a stupid fear,” Asriel said over them, smugly crossing his arms.

Chara only smirked, equally smugly. “That’s right. You’ve got me.”

But somehow, Asriel felt less and less sure that he did.

* * *

The moment the three of them got in Toriel’s van, Asriel and Frisk all but climbed over each other in their effort to show Toriel their prize.

“It’s a ladybug!” Asriel announced.

 _Though Chara says they’re not ladies or bugs,_ Frisk signs, because while talking to their friends is one thing, talking to Toriel is still another.

“And Chara is right, my child,” Toriel said with a smile. “Here is a fascinating fact about the humble ladybug, or ladybird, as it is called in some places. A ladybug can eat over five-thousand aphids - a type of small insect - in its lifetime. An appetite to rival any human or monster, to be sure!”

 _She sounds like Rambles too,_ Frisk signed.

“Rambles?” asked Toriel, blinking.

“Some character in a dorky video game,” Chara said dismissively.

“It’s not dorky! Just because you play all those gory shooty games doesn’t make my stuff dorky.”

“Who plays video games that _aren’t_ mindless violence?” Chara retorted, raising their head back and raising an eyebrow.

Frisk raised a hand.

“OK, fine. You’re _both_ dorks.”

Toriel also raised a paw.

Chara stared at her. “You what?”

“Oh, I have been playing the most darling game recently, actually. It is on my phone. Sans told me about it. It is called Miner Fabrication.” She smiled fondly. “I like to build these little houses in it.”

“You play _Minefab?!_ ” Chara gasped, horrified. “And _Sans_ plays it? I think I need to sit down.”

“Oh, no, Sans does not play it,” Toriel explained as she started the van. “I have tried to get him to, but he always says - “ she rather poorly imitated Sans’ voice - “‘that’s my bro’s kind of thing.’ I suppose he is not really a ‘gamer,’ as they say.”

She turned back towards Chara, narrowing her eyes to see all three of them still standing up.

“And yes, please take a seat. And put on your seatbelts.”

* * *

The entire ride to their shared apartment, Chara, Frisk, and Asriel sat in the back of the van and stared in rapt fascination at the ladybug. The ladybug seemed nonplussed by all the attention - it did little more than wander around aimlessly, occasionally flapping its wings.

When they arrived home, they all started to work. Asriel bought up his laptop to search the internet for tips on building a ladybug habitat, while Chara and Frisk went outside to collect materials for it to eat and to live with.

“I’m kind of surprised, Chara,,” Frisk said as they dug around in the grass and dirt, looking for sticks and large leaves.

“By what?” Chara replied without looking up.

“That you’re out here,” Frisk said vaguely.

“What? Why would I…” Chara blinked. “Oh. You think I’m too prim and proper to get my hands dirty? I am a gardener, you know. I have been my whole life.”

“No, not that,” Frisk said, smiling as they found a stick small enough for a container but large enough for the ladybug to crawl around on. “I just thought…” Their voice went quieter and their smile faded. “I just thought you’d rather hang out with Asriel than me.”

Chara frowned deeply and stopped rooting around in the dirt. They lifted their muddy, stained hands and put them on Frisk’s own, naturally brown ones, giving them a slight squeeze.

“Frisk, why would you ever think that?” Chara said, doing their level best not to make their tone sound accusing. “We spent so long together. You and I, we were closer than anyone. I wouldn’t trade the friendship we have for all the worlds in the entire damn multiverse.”

Frisk nodded, but to Chara, it looked rather glum. It was one of those nods where they clearly didn’t actually agree with what was being said.

“We talked about what we’re afraid of earlier,” Chara said gently. “And I know what you’re afraid of, more than anything else.”

Another, even more glum nod.

“You don’t have to be afraid of it with me. With Asriel, or Toriel, or any of us. That will never, ever happen again. We love you.”

They squeezed Frisk’s hands tightly, leaned forward and, for a split second, kissed Frisk on the forehead. Then they pulled away, their blush a little deeper, Frisk’s cheeks a little darker.

“I love you.”

Frisk smiled.

“I know. I just wanted you to kiss me.”

Chara smirked. “You little minx.”

* * *

By the time Frisk and Chara returned with a plastic bag full of sticks, rocks, leaves, and dirt, Asriel had made a ladybug habitat out of a large tupperware container and a lid he had stabbed small holes through (he’d later say that the stabbing part was cathartic.) Together, they placed dirt at the bottom of the container, then arranged the rest of the material they’d found.

Carefully, they attempted to coax the ladybug from the mesh cage into the container. Chara suggested using a stick, Frisk tried to use their finger as a perch for it, and Asriel kept far away and made faces at the tiny creature.

Of course, in the end, all three strategies failed, because the ladybug flew away. With the windows closed and nowhere for the ladybug to escape, the three of them spent the next hour chasing it down with a glass and trying not to break everything in the apartment.

It was Asriel who managed to recapture it, and it was some miracle that he managed to hold onto it, his paw sealing the bottom of the glass to prevent another escape. The entire time that he rushed it over to the container, he repeated “eww, eww, eww” over and over, pausing only to glare at Chara when they started laughing at him.

In the end, they managed to seal it in the container after all.

“Now what?” Asriel asked, wiping his paws on his pants legs. “I’m not taking care of that thing.”

“Oh, yes, you are,” Chara said. “And you’re going to enjoy it too.”

Frisk just stared at the ladybug in the container, a blissful smile on their face.

“Look at them,” Chara said pleadingly, though Asriel doubted their sincerity. “Do you want to ruin that lovely smile? We all need to pitch in now - it’s part of the family now, after all.”

“Oh, really? Part of the family?” Asriel said. “What are we going to name it then? Um… Lady… uh, Dreemurr?”

Chara slapped their face with their hand and murmured, “My god, are all of you this uncreative?”

“We should name it Pancake,” Frisk suggested, without looking away from the ladybug.

“Pancake?” said Chara, genuinely sounding confused. “Why Pancake?”

“I dunno,” said Frisk. “I just like Pancake.”

“We should name it Eurydice,” Chara suggested instead. “Beautiful, but forever trapped in Hell, so close to escape and yet unable to ever leave its prison.”

Asriel rolled his eyes. “You are _so_ pretentious. I’m voting for Pancake.”

“Very well,” Chara agreed. “May you be blessed with good fortune, Pancake.”

“Hi, Pancake!” said Frisk, waving their hand at the ladybug.

* * *

Every day over the next few days, Frisk, Chara, and Asriel took turns feeding Pancake lettuce and raisins and occasionally giving it a fresh moist paper towel to drink from. Frisk quickly got into the habit of talking to the ladybug about their day as they fed it, which was as encouraging to see as Frisk lately talking at all. Chara joined in the habit as well, although they mostly talked about new books they had read.

It was Asriel who treated their new pet as a chore. He did the bare minimum he had to, and then he went back to his video game and pointedly ignored it. Frisk tried to get him to join them in playing staring-eye contests with Pancake, but he always refused.

It was Asriel himself who quickly got sick of his own attitude towards Pancake. He wasn’t _afraid_ of it, he told himself. It ate lettuce and climbed on sticks and was smaller than his claw. It couldn’t harm him. He had nothing to _be_ afraid of.

One afternoon, when Frisk was napping and Chara was busy reading, Asriel went to Pancake’s container, opened it, and stuck his paw right in it. He waited for it to crawl onto his paw, half-afraid it would fly away, half-afraid it would bite him and inject poisonous ladybug venom into his body that would kill him instantly.

It crawled onto his paw. He shivered as he felt its six tiny legs crawling through his fur, and he turned his paw around so that it continued to crawl until it reached his paw pads. There it sat, doing very little besides occasionally flapping its wings.

Slowly, gently, Asriel lifted Pancake to eye level and stared at it.

It was…

Not as disgusting as he expected.

He could see it in great detail now, just like the butterfly that had landed on his snout a few days before. He could see its black, bulbous little head, and its circular body, and the six black dots on its thin red wings. It was almost, if he dared to admit it, kind of adorable.

“Uh, hi, Pancake,” Asriel said. “I’m Asriel. You know my friends, Chara and Frisk, but I guess we don’t know each other yet.”

Carefully, he walked away from the container and sat down on the couch, next to his Funtendo Switch.

“Have you ever seen a monster before? Well, I’m a monster. Well, Frisk tells me I’m not a _monster,_ but I am a _monster._ You know?” A pause. “I guess you don’t. It’s a long story anyway.”

Pancake sat perfectly still, which Asriel took as it being patient.

“I used to want to destroy everything,” he continued. “Big things, small things… even things as tiny as you. None of it really mattered to me.”

Pancake walked in a circle.

“I still want to squish you sometimes.”

Pancake flapped its wings, as if offended.

“I won’t!” Asriel said quickly. “Don’t worry. I wouldn’t do that. Chara says you’re part of our family now.” He paused. “For what that’s worth, I guess. Hasn’t stopped me before.”

Pancake flapped its wings once again, and then he watched as it tucked its legs into its body and sat perfectly still on his paw pad.

“I’m really glad you’re around, Pancake,” Asriel said with a smile. “You seem to be helping Frisk a lot. They’ve been talking a lot more lately, and I think having you to talk to makes it easier for them.”

Pancake continued to not move.

Asriel stared at it.

And then he rushed into the bedroom, one paw cupped over the other, and shouted, “Chara, I killed Pancake!”

* * *

Once Frisk had stopped crying and Chara had fetched Asriel’s laptop and done a quick Boogle search, Chara laughed.

“You dweeb,” they said. “Pancake is sleeping. They like you.”

“What?” Asriel said blankly. “They do?”

“I don’t know why you took it out of its container, but… it liked you enough to go to sleep right on you. It’s like how rabbits only flop over if they trust you.” Chara smiled, more sincerely. “Who knew you had such a way with beetles?”

“But… I…” Asriel blinked. “I don’t understand.”

Frisk wiped their eyes, looked at Asriel, and said, “It’s because you’re gentle.”

Chara nodded. “That’s exactly it. You’ve got a kind heart, Ree - a heart that’s filled with so much love that, sometimes, it can’t spare enough to love itself.”

Asriel uncupped his paws and stared down at Pancake, who had remained perfectly still.

He didn’t know if he believed what they were saying. Frisk had said it so matter-of-factly, and Chara had said it so poetically, but… it didn’t feel real. It didn’t feel _right._

And yet, as he stared at the tiny ladybug, there was some part of him, deep down, that felt a little warmth in the center of his chest.

* * *

Asriel talked to Pancake every day after that, and he spent the next several months spending time with Chara and Frisk as they played with their new family member. There was something about having a ladybug around, about taking care of it, that made them all feel a little of that warmth that Asriel had felt.

Of course, the inevitable happened. After all, a ladybug only lives for one year.

When Chara found Pancake on its back, its legs outstretched into the air, its wings spread, they thought it might be playing dead at first. But when it didn’t respond to anything they said or did, they realized it wasn’t an act.

Chara had been expecting this, but that didn’t make them prepared for it.

Their head rattling with far more emotion than they ever really thought a ladybug would give them, they took a napkin from the kitchen and gently wrapped Pancake up in it so that Frisk and Asriel wouldn’t see it in the same state they had.

Once that was done, they went into the bedroom and woke up their two closest friends.

Frisk, to Chara’s surprise, didn’t cry at first. Instead, they were the one to suggest that they bury it in the garden. It was Asriel who started tearing up, and then crying, and then _blubbering,_ quickly devolving into a complete mess. He couldn’t explain why he was so upset. His emotions were normally too dulled to get upset at anything. And yet something about this ladybug had wormed its way into his soul. It was as if it really had become, over the past seven months, part of their family.

While Frisk comforted Asriel, Chara took Pancake’s container, removed the sticks and leaves and other objects, and set the napkin down in it. They didn’t really feel any better themselves, if they were telling the truth - the little ladybug had become a light in their lives, as irreplaceable as any of the flowers they grew in their garden. They couldn’t imagine not having it around to talk to about their favorite books, and they struggled to imagine how much worse it must be for Frisk or Asriel.

“I’m going outside,” they said quietly as they closed the container and set it on the dining room table. “Anyone have any last words?”

Frisk nodded and walked up to the container. Rather than speak, they pressed two fingers to their lips, kissed them, and then pressed them against the side of the container. They were crying now, silently.

Asriel, for his part, wiped his tears and gave the container a smile.

“Thank you, Pancake.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to my friend Ivy for reading this over for me and giving me feedback! Super appreciated!


End file.
